Mailbag: Thumbnail sketches

Q.: Would you consider doing an article on story boarding a webcomic strip/ page? It’s something I always struggle with – essentially starting the page from scratch. My approach is generally to find a picture online that has the layout similar to what’s in my head and draw roughs accordingly. A lot of tutorials I’ve found don’t actually spend much time on the process outside of drawing rough shapes and slowly filling in the details, but it’s this initial composition – the rough shapes/camera view/what to show in a panel I always struggle with. Do you have any thoughts or tips relating to this?

A.: What you’re talking about is thumbnail sketching. (Storyboarding is another topic entirely.) It’s a very helpful part of the comics-creating process — and it’s one that many of us under-use (or skip entirely). As such, it deserves a little exploration…